


Strangely Here

by Amemait



Category: Tin Man (2007), due South
Genre: Crossover time people!, GFY, M/M, Trigger warning: Attempted strangulation, Trigger warning: Consenual violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 11:08:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amemait/pseuds/Amemait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes undercover comes without a coversheet.</p><p>A prologue, though it was not intended to be, to Not All There</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangely Here

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Tin Man, post CotW due South

Zero strode to his chambers, Honour Guard at his heels. Bare metres from the door, however, he stopped dead, face inscrutable.  
  
“Leave me.”  
  
“Sir?”  
  
One of his lackeys. Too gormless to actually be a second-in-command, but too loyal to betray him.  
  
 _Lackey? Minion. Heh._ But Zero’s face still showed none of his thoughts. Instead, he slid his eyes to the right and just looked at the-  
  
Kid. Yep, Kid. Maybe about 28, max. Too young. Far too young to really understand what this world was. Damn, made him feel old.  
  
“Sir?” Kid repeated, and Zero couldn’t be bothered remembering Kid’s real name.  
  
“I said, leave me.”  
  
“Sir!”  
  
Heels were clicked (and Zero winced at the noise they made, echoing across the long halls), there was a soft rush of leather, and the four other men left.  
  
Zero took a slow, deep breath once he could no longer hear their echoes, and then let it out.  
  
Detective Stanley Raymond ‘Ray’ Kowalski took two swift steps forward, and entered the rooms. The doors closed with a soft –snick- behind him, and he was left in the gloom for a few moments, but he did not turn on any lights. Instead, he turned the key in the door, locking the rest of the world out.  
  
For a moment, there was nothing but his own breathing, then he ran his fingers through his hair tiredly.  
  
“Smarties.”  
  
A figure rose from the bed, all height and strength, and Ray found himself in a hug.  
  
“She killed him, Frase.”  
  
“Oh, Zero…”  
  
They stood there for a timeless moment, Ray’s head bent down to rest in the crook of Fraser’s neck.  
  
“You figured anything out today?” Ray whispered.  
  
They repeated this conversation every day. And every day the answer was the same.  
  
“No Zero. All I can tell is that we must be here for a reason. Your reason is likely to subvert the moves of this Queen Azkadelia.”  
  
Ray nodded, because the other option – that he was here to help her! – was more horrifying than those first few moments in this place, the Outer Zone, with Fraser seemingly dead, lying prone at his doppelganger’s feet.  
  
Ray had never killed a person before, not even indirectly, but white rage had fanned out and suddenly there was a bullet in his twin’s head and he could see that Fraser was still breathing and he’d just panicked.  
  
Swapping clothes with the man before stuffing him into a rotting tree-corpse had seemed the sensible thing. When others in the same uniform had come, he’d almost been worried, but then they all addressed him as sir, congratulated him on finding the rogue ‘Slipper’, and had offered to take him from there.  
  
Ray hadn’t let Fraser out of his sight. He’d made something up about being knocked against a tree branch by the new prisoner. The uniformed subordinates had taken this to mean that Zero wanted personal revenge on the strange man from the Other Side, and he’d been able to pass off the apparent memory loss easily enough with the same lie. Truth was, he had felt a little light-headed.  
  
The next day had passed as a blur, but he began to relax once Fraser was awake again. He’d stared as Ray was called sir, had put up a fight as he was dragged to ‘Zero’s’ private chambers, had been seething right up until Ray had sent the guards away for a ‘private interrogation’, and had Ray pinned beneath him and both thumbs on the arteries in Ray’s neck before Ray had mercifully been able to gasp out “Not buddies, Frase.”  
  
Sometimes Fraser still woke up shaking at the thought of what might have happened otherwise.  
  
Ray usually woke up shaking from memories of ‘Zero’s’ life. When he ever slept, that was.  
  
Fraser pulled him gently along and downwards to kneel on the bed.  
  
“So what’s your reason?”  
  
Ray had never asked this question before. Fraser smiled softly, sadly, and pushed him gently onto the pillows, mindless of the ridiculously long coat that Ray still wore.  
  
“This is a mission of a nature far more intense than anything you’ve ever experienced, Zero.”  
  
Ray snorted at the veiled words, but didn’t bother to correct him. It had to be enough that he was called Zero in private, not the Ray he would always prefer. Whenever Fraser was out of the room, the words were “my lord”, “sir”, “master”, and they would have cut at Ray’s heart like razor wire if he hadn’t known precisely what Fraser meant by those words.  
  
 _I will help you keep this cover_.  
  
“Any such mission requires a point of contact,” Fraser continued, looking out at the immaculate room, not looking at Ray because he knew that ‘Zero’ was still too close to the surface and Zero would more likely kill a man who looked him in the eye than anything else.  
  
After that near-disastrous second day, Ray had declared the new prisoner as his personal servant.  
  
The only painful thing about that had been hitting Fraser, at Fraser’s insistence. Had to make it look good, look real, had to make Fraser look like he’d actually been hurt, browbeaten into a degrading new position in life and left with his soul broken. Believable, yeah.  
  
He’d taken to kissing each spot where each first bruise had once been. Another apology from one who’d cried as he’d hit.  
  
“Zero?”  
  
“Mm?” Ray’s eyes were closed, and he could feel Fraser’s fingers working deftly at boots that were eerily similar to RCMP-issue.  
  
“I’m here to keep you sane,” Fraser whispered  
  
The boots came off with a final tug, and Ray opened his eyes to look right at his partner.  
  
“Thank you.”


End file.
